Turkish Troops Kill 14 Syrian Kurds in Northern Syria

Accused Kurds of trying to infiltrate their operation zone

The Turkish Defense Ministry reported on Friday that they had “neutralized” 14 Syrian Kurdish members of the YPG. They accused the Kurds of trying to infiltrate their operation zone in the north.

There’s little detail on the operation, which comes as Turkey has been cutting down its military presence in northern Syria. Presidenr Erdogan has been keen for more operations against the Kurds for awhile, however.

Conceivably, Turkey claims almost the whole northern border of Syria. The Kurds have a presence mostly east of the Euphrates River, though there were some Kurdish districts conquered by Turkey earlier in the war.

Turkey is very public about viewing the YPG as terrorists. They view the group as an offshoot of the ideologically similar PKK, and treat both as banned terrorist groups. This tends to be used as a pretext to go after them.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.